How many endpoints are you managing these days? A quick tally made in a recent Aberdeen Group report on effective endpoint security, shows that most employees typically use one to three devices and each device can have anywhere from 25 to 100 applications installed on it, with up to three changes made per month per app. In a company with 1,000 employees, the amount of details to manage becomes enormous pretty quickly. And that’s not even counting employee departures and onboarding, lost or stolen devices to track, and other administrative tasks. Each endpoint and each change represents a vulnerability, putting your networks, data and your business at risk.

While Aberdeen reports that security vulnerabilities are decreasing overall, those that remain are more critical than ever, thanks to the increasingly “complex, fast-paced, disruptive digital technologies” we have become so dependent on — including mobile, cloud, social, big data and more. These technologies are certainly transforming the way we live and work for the better, but they don’t come without serious risks.

And cybercriminals are more savvy than ever, too. They understand that these complexities create serious vulnerabilities and are continually developing new ways to breach your organization’s boundaries. A proactive, unified endpoint management (UEM) strategy is critical — and really, it needs to be part of an organization’s core business strategy.

As an IT leader, you’ve got to communicate to your top business leaders what the risks are from a business point of view — how they affect system performance, employee productivity and ultimately the organization’s bottom line.

In this new report, Aberdeen presents the Monte Carlo model, which is a great tool for helping get this point across. Basically a quantitative risk analysis tool, it’s a visual representation that can help senior leaders make better-informed business decisions about risks — and about the value of investments in recommended controls and countermeasures such as enterprise endpoint management tools and solutions.

Once your business leaders understand the risks, they’ll be more likely to see the need for more robust endpoint management strategies to help secure your complex environment, reduce the operational time and costs associated with managing vulnerabilities, and reduce the risks of security breaches or noncompliance issues. And they’ll really appreciate your expertise!